The mother wept with relief as she cradled her newborn baby at the only maternity hospital still working in the Ukrainian city of Kherson.
Yulia Khomchyk, 37, discovered she was pregnant after Russian forces had seized the regional capital during the first days of the full-scale invasion in February.
But almost nine months later, a major Ukrainian counter-offensive managed to liberate the city in one of the most significant victories of the war so far – and just in time for the birth.
Putin scraps major annual news conference – Ukraine war latest
Yulia Khomchyk with her baby girl Maldina
“She is clearly Ukrainian, clearly born without all this occupation,” Yulia said, nursing her tiny girl called Maldina as she sat on a hospital bed next to a radiator to keep them warm.
“I am so glad that she is clearly Ukrainian. I am so glad, so glad.”
Kherson’s renewed freedom has brought a new reality, though, as Russian troops switch from being occupiers to attackers, launching deadly rocket and mortar strikes daily.
The bombardments have left more than 40 civilians, including at least one child, dead and many more injured. At least three people were killed on Monday in the latest barrage.
Adding to the misery, the city is suffering from power outages, a lack of running water and many residents are reliant upon food handouts to survive.
It is a huge challenge for Halyna Luhova, the de-facto mayor, but she said the city would endure.
“The situation is pretty difficult,” she told Sky News in an interview on Saturday.
“They shell us daily… innocent civilians die… but even if we will be hungry, freezing, without electricity – we will be without Russians.”
The mayor – known as the head of the Kherson city military administration – took Sky News to visit a number of aid points where basic food supplies and water are being given to people.
The majority of those queuing up for support looked to be pensioners but there was the odd family with young children.
Dmytro Hubarev, 44, said life was hard as he received a loaf of bread, a can of beans and a tin of ham. “We were waiting for heat and power,” he said. “Now we are under shelling.”
Some residents approached the mayor with particular problems, including one woman who complained that she had pain in one of her eyes.
The mayor assured her: “We will be giving people a bag with necessary medicine. You will be receiving humanitarian aid with this bag with all the necessary [supplies].”
The woman, Natalia Skyba, 53, did not seem satisfied.
Kherson has been hard-hit since Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine
Read more:
After setbacks, Putin appears intent on breaking Ukraine’s resistance in a less conventional way
How ‘four-legged rehabilitators’ are helping Ukrainian children traumatised by war
Asked by Sky News if she thought life was better or worse now Russia’s occupation had ended, she replied: “Worse. Worse. They are giving us aid but not for everyone.”
Yet life in this city while it was under Russian control was a different kind of hell.
People, who opposed the occupation, lived under fear of arrest, torture and even death if they stepped out of line or attempted to defy Kremlin plans to make Kherson part of Russia.
It is not an existence most want to return – though deciding which is the worst of two evils is becoming harder as the Russian shelling intensifies.
Leonid Borovskyi, 60, surveyed a huge hold in the wall of his next-door neighbour’s flat on the seventh floor of an apartment block in a residential area in the city.
A Russian rocket recently slammed into this Kherson flat
It was caused by a Russian rocket that slammed into the building the previous week.
Asked whether enduring Russian attacks was a price worth paying for liberation, he paused and thought deeply before answering.
“From the one side – yes. From the other side – no,” he said.
“Freedom comes at a high price.”
More than 200,000 residents have left the city since Russia’s occupation began – most before the liberation – leaving just under 80,000 still in their homes.
Because of the danger of incoming rounds, the Ukrainian government is encouraging more people to leave until it is safer.
An evacuation train departs each afternoon with new faces on board.
Sat at a window seat with a table, Viktoria Tupikonenko, 34, described how her whole family had celebrated the liberation of Kherson.
Viktoria Tupikonenko described how her whole family had celebrated the liberation of Kherson
She said she could not believe one month later she would be forced to flee with her five-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. Her husband stayed behind with his parents.
“I can’t believe I am just leaving everything – my native land, my native home,” Viktoria said, tears streaking down her face.
“I am leaving my husband but I must go. We don’t know for how long and I don’t know if I will come back, or if our house will survive, or if I even see my husband again.”
But she is in no doubt that this pain is a price worth paying for her country to be free.
“Freedom yes! We need to hold on.”
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World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war
How tariffs will affect your money
Could Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?
Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Donald Trump its now seen here as turning on France and the rest of Europe in a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community. and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war
How tariffs will affect your money
Could Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?
Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Mr Trump it is now being as turned on, as France, along with the rest of Europe, finds itself in what many would argue is a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
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